Alleluia
by PallaPlease
Summary: Death is not a thing unknown to Raven - but the death of a loved one has changes to bring.
1. Prelude

Alleluia  
  
Prelude  
  
----  
  
She remembers when it is morning, filled with that symbiotic dusky light as night slowly gives to the scattering rays of morn, and his satisfied athlete's grin when she steps silently into the rec room. "Why are *you* so pleased?" she asks, sourly, pausing coldly behind the curve of the couch.  
  
"Man," he all but roars with amused triumph, "I am the *champ*! Undefeated, on top, high score!" And he gestures with his large, glinting hand to the television, a silvery mess of masculine glory and exhausted victory as the game flickers the neon words of his meaningless, universal win.  
  
"You are utterly absurd," she says in a cool tone, narrowing her dark eyes in disgust. She does not understand him, cannot understand the small complexities of his arrogance and simultaneous humility. "What purpose does all," she, in turn, gestures, as she speaks dryly, "this useless equipment have? It's space we'd be better off using for satellite communication or monitor systems."  
  
He looks at her, the same frighteningly overwhelming grin that he had worn when she, reluctantly, suggested a celebration upon Robin's rescue. "You want the long or short version?" he asks, absently clicking his thumb over the button to save. "'Cause I got a million reasons why all of this is worth it.   
  
"I mean, first off," and he swings his heavy, cybernetic arm over the back of the couch, face serious, "ya gotta think of what it is: electronics. It's complex, with wires and small pulses going through it that keep it going, like it's alive, y'know? You think it's worthless, but this stuff keeps you sane, sometimes, in little ways. Like life."  
  
His hand twitches, soft, mechanical whirrs flickering through the rubber-coated veins of copper, and she looks at him, narrowly under the darkness of her hood. Something deeper in his words, but then he grins, all machismo and sheer pride at the strobing high score on the screen.  
  
"Victory pancakes, on the house!" he smirks, and snaps his metal fingers at her, a ringing, cool sound.  
  
"How thrilling," she replies, because there is nothing else to say.  
  
-  
  
If electronics live then so can they perish.  
  
When she does not remember - when she is drawn back from an uncharacteristic moment of shock, and the kinetic wrong of confused emotion, to realize it is night - she sees the dull gleam along the silver that is his abdomen, his thighs, the bulky, graceful curve of his shoulder joint. The curves are bulbous and dim, and the cybernetic eye is flat, an unnatural black where it was meant to glow red.   
  
She understands death.  
  
----  
  
end  
  
----  
  
notes:  
  
Yes, it's meant to be ambiguous/confusing/irritating. And, yes, I know where I'm going with this. 


	2. Shadows

NOTE: I've had this done and sitting on a disk for about a month now; the sad thing is, I finished writing it immediately before my computer stopped accessing FFN. So, it's been done but I haven't been able to upload it 'til now. ^^;  
  
====  
  
Alleluia  
  
Shadows  
  
----  
  
She waits a moment, in the subtle cold of the room as the air conditioning system whirrs and pauses a moment, a shh sound where the blades have ceased to spin. Hand on the metal doorway, gleaming eyes staring coldly into the shadows of the room before her, and she waits there, as though something dark and new is within. It is silent, of course, and empty of anything even resembling life; she knows this and so does not seek anything, but finds herself waiting anyway, poised in the door's metal frame.   
  
A rush of cold air heralds the return of the air conditioning, and she blinks, suddenly, shattering the spell of nothingness. Raven frowns, then, a tiny twitch of her lips, and she firmly tugs her hood to cast her face into shadows, much as his room - devoid of the humanity he possessed - has been. She finds no reason in grieving, has no reason to do so.   
  
Death, of all things, is what she understands in greatest detail; death is a smooth, precise process of logic and completion. Somehow, though, the old knowledge of coming to a full circle seems trite, stale and hollow. She does not want to think on any part of it, and when she draws her hand back from the frame, she allows her eyes to linger on the opaque blackness of his room, recognizing that this is her farewell, that she cannot grieve as Kory and Garfield do, nor can she hide it within an endless spring of toil and frustration and renewal as Robin does.  
  
"Rest well, Victor," she says to the emptiness, and steps back into the hall, padding the door shut with her palm.   
  
This is all she can give him.  
  
-  
  
They were a trio, she, Beast Boy, and Cyborg: Gar feeling, she seeing, Vic acting.  
  
She does not know how to comfort Garfield, their sensitive, playful Beast, without Cyborg to complete the cycle; she can feel and echo his pain, but she has no skill in gentling that pain. Once, before something had changed and the complicated machinated man that was Victor Stone had ceased, she would have recognized Beast Boy's pain and communicated it, with an askance look and raised eyebrow, to Cyborg.   
  
Vic would fix it.  
  
"He's m'little buddy," he had said once, grinning in his sarcastic masculine way as he plopped his cybernetic hand on Beast Boy's head. "Y'know, 'cause he's such a shortie." A grating rub of metal palm on the already annoyed boy's scalp, and Garfield was a gorilla, large and bellowing a half-serious, half-joking threat of beating Cyborg.  
  
She had watched them without speaking that day, as she had many days, always observing and refraining from entering their constant best friend-alternating-rivalry. It had not bothered her to speak with either one, knowing as she did that Beast Boy would find a way to irritate her into a conversation and that Cyborg--  
  
Cyborg, in a way, was more like her than any of the others.  
  
-  
  
And now she does not know what she is supposed to do, when it is only she and Beast Boy left of their trio. She does not know how to speak to Kory with the most subtle of expressions and she does not know how to trust Robin to fix it.  
  
It seems, as the door slides shut, closing off his room as a temporary memorial of adolescence lost, she does not know anything.  
  
----  
  
end  
  
----  
  
notes: To be continued in greater detail, with a plot, flashbacks, and actual characterization.  
  
responses: Firstly, to my two detractors, relax. ^^ There was no sexual implication in describing Cyborg (far from it!) and the couple is arguable in the context of the cartoon. (In the context of the comic, though, I agree.) Thanks, however, to Venus Smurf (always a lovely reviewer), Tajeri-Lynn (and, erm, I'm planning on updating 'The Trickster' soon...^^; Hee!), and Devilkitty (who gave me one of the most intelligent reviews I have ever had the honor of receiving). Additionally, thanks to victim for a thoughtful review. :D 


End file.
